From:	Airwasp <Airwasp@***.COM>
Subject:	Re: Zeitgeists (Ghosts in Time?)
Date:	Sat, 2 May 1998 07:54:49 EDT

> But I would argue against anything such as "Zeitgeist" spirits in SR.
> Doesn't make sense in the "official" SR cosmology. And even if it did
make
> sense, I would argue against it because a zeitgeist is so damn hard to
> define, and I don't just mean the word itself but what it is referring
to.
>
> I don't know, it would sort of be like having "happiness" or
"lust" or
> "melancholy" spirits, just as you have Hearth or Forest spirits.
>

<<Yeah, I got that mood or feeling thing. After I'd posted my original thing
and thought about it, I realized how damnably vague it was. But then, so
are "Spirits of the Fiery Firmament" if you ask me. =) But you did touch
on one of my major influences. Ubiritan's idea of Lumini was what gave me
the idea for this.

The idea I hashed out last night is that my so called "Zeitgeists" are
spirits tied to an object or place that symbolizes an era, time period,
event, whatever. They are very definitely a type of "Spirit of Man".
However, they are more in tune with social trends, and the emotions tied to
an event than they are to physical locations. So, you may not be able to
use them to search for a person in a city, but they may be able to give you
perspective on any influence a person had in their native time period.
These spirits would fit more with the scholars, and maybe the information
brokers, of the SR universe than the runners. Some of the potential ways
that I envisioned it using spirit powers may have some uses, but nuyen for
soy-donuts, I'd put my money on a hearth spirit, city spirit, whatever if I
needed help in a scrap.

I can do a full write up if anyone is curious. I even came up with a sort
of scholarly totem that could summon up these spirits.>>

Guys, sorry, but something funny is going on with my mailer so I am having all
sorts of fun answering mail today.

Perhaps there is another option on how to consider Zeitgeists, they are a
variation on Ancestral Spirits from the Cyberpirates Sourcebook. But instead
of being an ancestor, they are something -OR- someone who embodies the very
essence of that time period (I could just see one coming from the late 60's in
the US ... hello flower child).

Mike